“I have never witnessed behaviour so undiplomatic,” recalled Mr Venizelos, the Greek deputy prime minister. “The climate was extremely heavy, absolutely tragic. And very, very aggressive,” he added.

Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos gave an exclusive interview to The Guardian newspaper on the meeting that took place in Cannes in November 2011. The article published is entitled “How Greece pulled back from the brink of plunging Europe into chaos”.

As journalist notes “the disclosures have been grist to the mill of an anti-austerity opposition determined to prove that Athens had almost no say in the running of its affairs” , adding that the dinner held at Cannes was a reaction to the announcement of George Papandreou on holding a referendum, which came as a surprise. Many feared that this referendum would cause chaos in Europe while Italy seemed to follow Greece in the path of the debt problems.

In the article is is noted that Merkel and Sarkozy were furious about Papandreou’s statement and their patience was exhausted. “Sarkozy was extremely upset,” said Mr Venizelos adding: “Nobody could speak because he was talking continuously. Merkel was calmer but her message was clear: either you cancel the referendum or you hold one, immediately, that asks: ‘yes or no to the euro’. And after that we’ll see if we’ll go ahead with the [next] instalment [of aid], the [rescue] programme, the haircut.”

Evangelos Venizelos continues: “Imagine the reaction of the markets. In three days we would have collapsed. We would never have got to the referendum because there would have been massive withdrawal of deposits from banks,”. As he mentioned, the referendum was supposed to be about the austerity program and not about Greece’s presence in the euro.

Merkel suggested Venizelos to stay to consider all possible exit scenarios with the then head of the Eurogroup Jean- Claude Juncker and the finance ministers of France and Germany, “because the result [ of the referendum ] may well be ‘no’,”. Both Juncker, who is known to sympathize Greece, and Venizelos refused to stay, according to the article.

The artile also mentions that according to the personal narrative of the crisis in a book of the former Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, Sarkozy was so furious that he jumped on the table shouting at the Greek Prime Minister “You are a f… psycho” !

The Guardian also reports that despite Germany denied last week the accusations on that Wolfgang Schauble had supported Greece’s exit from the euro, as claimed by the Financial Times, the documents made ​​available to the newspaper show that when the Greek delegation traveled to Cannes there were already plans to address the possibility of a Grexit.

Regarding Papandreou’s decision on referendum, Mr Venizelos said that at first he supported the idea because he did not want to further divide the country or the ruling party. But when an email from Papandreou made ​​him realize that the then Prime Minister had not informed the other EU leaders, the then Finance Minister got so ill that he was admitted to the hospital with stress-induced appendicitis. “It was one thing not to tell me , but quite another not to tell Merkel or Sarkozy or anyone in the EU. When I received that email at 1.30 after midnight asking “What will happen if we lose?” I told him “Are you serious? You announce all these things and now you ask? Hadn’t you thought about any of this before?” Mr. Venizelos said.

All European leaders wanted to know what was going on and there was no other way but to join Papandreou and fly to Cannes.

There, according to Evangelos Venizelos, he defended the prime minister, but when he saw that the future of the country was at stake he changed his tactics. “The flight [in Athens ] was the most dramatic I’ve ever taken,” he said.

George Papandreou inisted on holding the referendum. Meanwhile, without the Greek leader knowing it, Merkel and Sarkozy have said in a joint press conference that Greece had one choice: referendum on staying or exiting from the eurozone .

“As Finance Minister I had to say something. If the next day Greeks woke up with their country’s European future being so uncertain we would have absolute panic and run on the banks. We would have caused great damage to the eurozone in addition to our self-destruction” Evangelos Venizelos said. As Mr Papandreou was asleep in his aeroplane seat, Venizelos prepared a statement that would eventually be “the beginning of the end of the referendum,” as the newspaper describes.